Today, things are calm. The wind has shifted, skipping in from the coast on cooling breezes. South Mountain has once again gone dormant, hot spots have been doused. I can hear work crews jackhammering the streets, cement mixers droning, and the dull roar of traffic from the 126 Freeway. Last night, we won Trivia Night at The Hangar Bar and Grille, which had been preparing to evacuate just a week ago. It was a light but competitive turnout. We came home with a basket filled with items from Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving dinner, a baseball cap, an agave plant, and $27. We’re sleeping better now that it’s cool and everything is not on fire.
Only by quirks of fate—and geography—are we able to enjoy some relative peace.
South Mountain divides the Santa Clara River Valley (Santa Paula) to its north from the towns and agricultural areas of Somis, Moorpark, and Camarillo to its south. Last week, the Mountain Fire broke out deep in one of its canyons. Goaded by Santa Ana winds, it quickly transformed from brush fire to inferno. It raced south into ranches and farms, crashed into tonier, country-club neighborhoods, hop-skipped one highway, and tried to jump a second. Power went out across much of Ventura County. The fire played havoc with firefighters, who had to give up on property protection and focus on saving lives. There simply wasn’t adequate water pressure in area hydrants to help battle the flames. Residents were trapped; many had to be airlifted out or otherwise evacuated to safety. Horses and other domestic animals were transported to area shelters. Dense columns of smoke twisted indolently over the valley and smothered the western end of Ventura County.
Over the course of the day, the fire split from itself and began a slow, relentless march down the north face. Which meant that Santa Paulans now had front-row seats to the lines of fire burning their way down to the farms, businesses, and industrial properties at the mountain’s base. Evacuation warnings and orders were issued for areas south of the 126 freeway. Many schools shut down for the day. So did some businesses. But others, like fast-food restaurants, were bustling, struggling to serve the hundreds of residents who were still without power and unable to cook for themselves. My husband and I grabbed pizza from a local pizzeria. While I waited in the car with our dog, I watched two high school girls stop to take pictures of the inferno. Earlier, we had noticed other cars pausing along our hillside street to looky-loo. People were bustling about their ordinary lives—and stopping to photograph Hell along the way.
We got lucky. The fire never got past the freeway, at least not here in Santa Paula.
In Camarillo, residents are slowly filtering back into their neighborhoods, or what’s left of them. Picking through the rubble, noting how only a chimney or flagpole still stands, unscathed. There are the heartbreaking calls for missing pets. You can hear voices faltering with the realization that beloved fur babies may not have survived.
With a randomness that feels personal, like the fire specifically targeted them, it razed some homes all the way to their foundations but left others untouched. It engulfed cars trapped on roadways. It hopscotched through neighborhoods with all the grinning antipathy of a sociopath.
Having mushroomed to a massive 20,630 acres, or 32 square miles, the Mountain Fire is now 82 percent contained, with crews continuing to mop up. Displaced residents must now make the hard decisions. Rebuild? Or move on? For some, the fire erased thirty, forty, even fifty years of personal history. Keepsakes and mementos. That one door jamb where a child’s growth was charted in pencil marks.
I can’t see the devastation from here, just the mountain that divides us from it. On our patio, a hummingbird sways on a string of lights and guards one of its feeders. A squirrel pole dances up and down the other bird feeders and scavenges among the seeds the finches leave behind. One leaf of our new agave plant has shot sunward, “heliotroping” toward optimism. It’s a beautiful day, really.
I can’t see the other side of the mountain, and in many ways, it feels like a world away. An alternative reality. But I can feel it. We all can. Yesterday on our morning walk, we heard sirens screaming through the valley. The man who passed by us on his own walk worried that firefighters might be headed toward his home. The winds were gathering strength. Who knew what new disaster they might be whipping up. He double-timed it up the hill, I wished him good luck. I turned to survey the valley, South Mountain, looking for the tell-tale wisps of smoke.
We can all feel it. We dread the day the fire finally comes for us.